


Understood

by hafren



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-21
Updated: 2009-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hafren/pseuds/hafren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Gauda Prime, Blake and Avon come to an understanding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Understood

The sky is very blue, very deep. There are different layers of cloud moving across it: great white banks of cumulus that look low enough to touch, and far above, wispy mare's tails of cirrus. Their patterns change all the time; the wind is warm but fresh and keeps moving them on, out of the frame.

I could look at them for ever, if there weren't something even better to look at. I turn my head to where he lies beside me, his eyes closed, sun warming their lids. Some seeds have drifted down from the flower meadow on to his brow, his cheek, the tip of his nose…. I lean over and blow them softly away, and he opens his eyes and smiles up at me.

I love this place. I came here years ago, when I was alone, and I knew then I had to bring him here. Well, I say alone. I was with Deva and the others, looking for somewhere to use as a base. I meant when I wasn't with him.

And I'm wrong, too. It wasn't when I first saw this place that I knew I must bring him here. It can't have been, because I didn't know the truth then. I remember now. We came down the road from the east, and there's that turn where suddenly the bay opens out before you, the flower meadow sloping down to the beach and those two great green crags guarding it either side. The sun was glinting off the sea and the sky was endless, like the skies I'd see when I went to Exbar as a lad, the ones I missed so much in the Domes.

It was beautiful, and it made me lonely. I wanted someone to share it with, but I didn't know who, not then.

He picks a long blade of feathery grass and tickles my nose with it. His eyebrows are raised in that look that says "what are you thinking about and why aren't you paying attention to me?" I laugh. "I was daydreaming, that's all. Feeling neglected?" For answer he pulls my head down to his. The taste of his mouth is all mixed up with the salt in the air and the smell of grass and flowers. I go carefully at first, wary of the hurt place on the inside of his lip, but when I feel his tongue contending with mine, it's like a current of light rushing through me and I kiss and kiss until I feel his mouth completely soft, open, surrendered.

When I let him go, his face is flushed, his eyes sparkling. He breathes out in that barely audible little sigh that means so much to me now, and settles his head in the crook of my arm. I sense his whole body relaxing, and I know that's him feeling safe, because he's with me.

I can't believe I didn't always understand his body as well as I do now. If I look down, he'll give me that dazzling smile, and I'll read the love and fun and need in it as if they were written out in words. But that was always the trouble, before. That smile came with words, and they'd be bitter, or sarcastic, or challenging. I could never see past the words, and the tone they were spoken in.

Never till that day. Deva - poor Deva, my fault he's dead, as much as anyone's - had been to make contact with a rebel group, but he came a day or so after the Federation found them. There wasn't much left; if there were any weapons they'd been taken, but he did bring back some old home-made tapes and disks, because he could see from the scribbled titles that they were rebel propaganda and he thought I might be on them. I was, too. Some from way back, before my head was messed around with - I couldn't believe how young I looked. And a lot from the Liberator years. I never realised before how many people like to record things. Seemed like every time I made a speech or negotiated with some group, someone preserved it for posterity. It was strange to see all those faces again.

Deva started running another, then clicked in annoyance. "Sound's gone on this one." He made to turn it off, but I stopped him. "No, leave it. I remember that. Me and Avon, we went down to - God, I can't even recall the name of the place - looking for allies. And he was in a foul mood, sarky as hell. That's us with the Council; he backed me up as far as he had to but every word had an edge to it. It'll probably be better without the sound."

 

We watched me, orating to the assembled dignitaries, walking through the streets with them, while I tried to recall what the figure beside me had been saying under his breath. But I couldn't, because without the words, I was listening to what I could see. The way his eyes were fixed on me, as if there were no-one else in the room. The way he stayed close, finding maps and documents, knowing when I was going to need something before I did. The time one of the councillors asked him to do something, and he looked at me for confirmation. The time someone rushed up to me in the street - it was a well-wisher but we didn't know that - and he was in front of me, shielding me.

"Yes," Deva said over my shoulder, "he was, wasn't he?"

"Was what?"

"Besotted with you." I didn't bother arguing; there was no point. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, or that I'd never seen it before. The silence on the viscast thundered in my ears. So many times, over the past few years, I'd heard he was looking for me, trying to get in touch. And I'd thought; no, he's just doing it out of a sense of duty. Remember what he said: When Star One is gone it is finished, Blake. And I want it finished. I want to be free.

But now I was thinking of it with the sound turned down, so to speak, the desolation on his face. And other times, so many times when his face and body wouldn't tell the lies he wanted them to, so he'd made his voice do it instead. And I'd listened to his words, not to him. I'll never make that mistake again, I thought. My head was buzzing like a beehive: I have to let them know where I am. He'll come here. We'll understand each other at last. I'll take him to the bay with the flower meadow.

Though the sky is still blue, in my mind it's as if a cloud has drifted over the sun. The coldness is more the memory of anger than the thing itself, but I will never forget how I felt when I saw him. When I walked towards him, not hearing his words, answering the welcome I saw in his eyes. When he shot me.

It was still absolutely clear in my mind when I woke: about the only thing that was. I had to be told about the battle, how Arlen had let in the Feds and how my people had rallied and beaten them off. I asked the doctor how many were dead.

"Not many of ours, actually. Deva and Klyn, and one of the women from the ship. Someone saw Arlen shoot Deva and the girl, and we suppose she must have shot Klyn as well. The Fed troopers were using stun guns - they must have wanted you alive. But of course Arlen… " His voice trailed off uncomfortably.

"Had the gun I gave her. I know. I'll have to live with it. Arlen, however, did not do this to me." I felt the huge re-gen cast gingerly. "He's - they're - alive, then."

"Yes. Do you want to see any of them?"

"No." It was days before I could face that. I was angry with them all: for being so ready to think the worst, for not doing a damn thing to stop him… but nothing compared with the anger I felt against him. I'd thought about my words to him, since. Yes, they could be misinterpreted. I could see, looking back, how "I set all this up" sounded. But that wasn't the point. The point was that he had listened to my words at all, not to my eyes, my smile, my open arms. Just when I'd learned a new language, he had to start speaking my old one. I think I could, literally, have killed him.

Even now, thinking about it, my body has gone tense, and he feels that; kneels up beside me and looks into my face, troubled. I try to smile, but maybe I don't make too good a job of it, because he bows his head in contrition. He always knows when I'm thinking about it, and I always know when he's feeling guilty. I draw him close and murmur "It's all right". He moves his lips against my chest in a shape that might be I'm sorry, and the cloud clears from my mind, for now.

By the time I could walk around a bit, I was sick of the sound of Vila's voice outside the door, pleading to see me, and I called him in. He ran to me.

"Oh Blake, I'm so glad you're all right. I wanted to come and see you ages ago, but your people wouldn't let me."

"I wouldn't let you. I don't much like being mistrusted."

He had the grace to look ashamed. "I'm sorry. We hadn't met anyone for months who hadn't lied to us and tried to kill us."

"Yes, I've met a fair few of those myself. But I still knew who my friends were." And then I thought: Arlen, and knew I was being unfair. To him, anyway, and Tarrant and the other girl. "No, I'm sorry. No hard feelings."

His face cleared. "Does that mean we can come with you, when you leave here?" It had been obvious we'd have to do that, now the Federation knew where we were; my people had everything packed and were only waiting for me to be fit to travel.

"You can. And Tarrant and what's-her-name."

"And… ?"

"No. I won't harm him, but I don't want to set eyes on him."

Vila looked unhappy. "He's truly sorry, Blake. Go and see him."

I laughed bitterly. "What for? A heartfelt apology, maybe?"

"If he could, I think he would." Vila's eyes go impossibly brown and helpless when he wants to get around you. "Blake, we can't go with you and not take him… not when he's like this."

"Like what?"

"Haven't they told you?" I shook my head: I hadn't asked. Vila spoke slowly and hesitantly, for him. "He was sort of in shock for days afterwards, cata-something they said, hardly there at all. He's just about normal now, in fact he's been trying to keep your computer operation running now that Deva's…..Only…. he can't speak, Blake. Not a word, in fact he doesn't make a sound louder than breathing."

"Was he hurt? Can a stun-gun do that?"

"The doctor says it's in his mind. But it's real enough. And apparently he might never get it back."

It didn't kill my anger. In fact I thought, and may have said, something catty on the lines of "that'll be a blessed relief anyway". But I went to see him. I didn't give him any warning, just walked into the computer room and said his name. He was kneeling on the floor, twiddling some wire or other, and when he heard my voice his face turned straight to me. It was white and ravaged; he looked ill. I crossed over to him and he stayed where he was, at my feet.

There were a lot of things I wanted to say to him. And I couldn't, not when he couldn't answer. I felt I was being denied the right to be angry, and that made me even angrier. I thought: well, if I can't do it in words I can in actions, and I opened my shirt and showed him where the scars ran, the length of my stomach.

He gasped, the first sound I'd heard from him, and reached up, very hesitantly. He stroked the scars with his fingertips, not making a sound, but when I tilted his face up, tears were running silently down it. He covered his eyes with his hands. I prised them away and lifted him up.

"I'm not saying I don't still feel angry with you. Or even that I can forgive you. But I love you, and there's somewhere I want to take you."

And I brought him here. We have a lot of time together, because to tell the truth I'm semi-retired from the revolution these days. That was Soolin's idea. Soon after we set up the new base she made it clear: "I'm sick of running, and trusting the wrong people, and being led into elephant traps by incompetents, and I want to try it my way. You're worth gold to the revolution as a figurehead, Blake; you can make the speeches and inspire the troops, but leave the strategy alone, because basically you're crap at it." Avon actually smiled, the first time in months, and she turned on him. "And you're no better."

So, when they don't need me to make speeches or him to play with machines, I teach him to recognise different cloud types and read the sky for weather. He massages me when my scars ache, and I interpret for him when he gets frustrated at having to write things down or key them in for people. I can nearly always read his face and tell what he wants to say. Most of the pain in our lives, we caused each other, and we're the best ones to heal it. Well, palliate it anyway.

I do miss his voice, sometimes. I've coaxed him to practise, and he'll try to say my name. But he never gets further than breathing the "B", and it distresses him, so before long he ends up in my arms, being shown what lips are really for and why words don't matter. I love being able to make him smile again.

Thinking about that, I hug him tighter. He breathes in sharply and I know what it must be. I get a bit rough with him now and then. It isn't intentional exactly, I mean I'd never hit him or anything like that. But I have kissed and held hard enough to bruise. I lift his top and see the bloom of yellow-brown around his ribs. It's rather beautiful, though I feel guilty for thinking that. I stroke the bruises gently, and he doesn't flinch from my hand.

"I'm sorry," I say, but he shakes his head violently and puts a hand on my tunic, above where he knows the scars are. I won't stop him thinking of it as atonement, because it seems to help him. But I don't think that's why it happens, not any more. It's more that I need to be everything to him, sun and shadow, the clouds and what makes them go away.

Sometimes when he's asleep, he has bad dreams; his breath comes hard and his face is clouded. Then I whisper my name in his ear and watch all the muscles relax, watch his face smooth out in peace as the clouds drift away. And that's me. I mean, I'm the clouds in the sky and the wind that blows them away, and it's awesome. I'll never get used to it as long as I live.

I lie back with him in my arms and talk to him softly, revelling in the sun on my face and the warm weight against my breast, and at some point I feel him fall asleep. I didn't know you could feel that happen, but I do. And suddenly the thought comes to me that if, as I hope, I'm holding him at the moment he dies, I'll feel that too. I come wide awake and close my arms around him. My eyes fix and stare into the sky, into the deep blue emptiness, keeping it from him until he wakes.


End file.
